J. J. Finley Letters

Jesse Johnson Finley was born November 18, 1812 on his father’s plantation, “Grassland,” near Lebanon, Tennessee. He passed the bar in Tennessee in 1821 and moved to Arkansas to practice law and served in the Arkansas state legislature. He later returned to Tennessee, where he became the mayor of Memphis and continued his law practice, though this was briefly interrupted when he volunteered for the Second Seminole War. In 1846, Finley moved to Marianna, Florida with his third wife Margaret. A year later, he was appointed Judge of the western Judicial Circuit in Florida and in 1850 was elected to the Florida State Senate. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Finley became the Confederate States Judge for the District of Florida. However, by the next year he had resigned the position to enlist in the Florida Infantry of the Confederate Army as a private. He rose through the ranks quickly, advancing to colonel and then promoted to Brigadier General of the Florida Infantry stationed in Tennessee by 1863. He was part of the failed Kentucky campaign of General Kirby-Smith, was involved in military campaigns in Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, and was severely wounded at the battle of Jonesboro. After the war, Finley returned to Florida where he served partial terms during three contested elections to the House of Representatives in the 1870s and 1880s. He died in 1904 in Lake City and is buried in Gainesville, Florida.